SEQUIM — After hearing complaints from downtown property and business owners, the City Council held off Monday night on a proposed downtown improvement plan.

One of the controversies is the intended introduction of a “woonerf,” a Dutch word for a small street on which pedestrians and cyclists have legal priority over motorists, at least in the Netherlands.

The Sequim version would have Seal Street available for town festivals as well.

“Turning Seal Street into a woonerf is one thing; planning to create a wholly new public gathering place, anchored by civic facilities and a season market, the focus of many community events and celebration as noted in the downtown plan, is not feasible in such a small place,” said Gary Zellmer, who co-owns the Sequim Trading Co. Plaza at Washington Street and North Sequim Avenue.

The property is backed by two parking lots that abuts Seal Street, which has been recommended for conversion to a woonerf.

Mark Hinshaw, project manager for city-contracted consultant LMN Architects of Seattle, said a woonerf in Sequim could be “a shared space” used for festivals.

Zellmer reminded the City Council that in 2003, he and his wife, Carol, requested that the city not issue any more permits allowing the Sequim Lavender Festival to block access into their commercial property’s parking lots on Seal Street.

“Our request was ignored and we were forced to take legal action to resolve the matter,” Zellmer said.

“Now we are back here again, as the city is considering a plan that would similarly exacerbate this issue.”

Zellmer said part of a successful downtown plan “is understanding the potential impacts. These impacts have been previously experienced and resolved.”

Sharing the Zellmers’ concern was Nancy O’Brien, owner of the Cedar Court Apartments that also use park spaces off West Cedar Street and adjoining Seal Street.

Saying a woonerf would be pedestrian-friendly and not so for vehicles, O’Brien told the council that “there is not enough room there [to create a woonerf] without taking something away.”

“If really what you want there is a pedestrian plan plaza, it’s just too small,” she said.

Stan Berman, who owns the medical office building at West Cedar Street and North Sequim Avenue, said he supported the Zellmers and O’Brien.

“You have not contacted us,” he told city leaders. “We have contacted you.”

He called Seal Street dangerous, saying the city has to remove parking spaces on both sides of the West Cedar entrance to Seal Street to increase visibility.

He said woonerfs were designed in Europe for its predominantly smaller cars and more bicycles, and Sequim has few of those.

Hinshaw and City Planning Director Chris Hugo said none of the concepts presented is final and that the process thus far has had hundreds of people involved.

Hugo said a proposal to increase apartment dwellings downtown above and around retail buildings to a height of up to 45 feet was intended to add “a lively street all times of the year.”

The plan concept, city officials said, is to enlarge the idea of downtown into a city center that embraces other districts, along with focusing new, mixed-use development into a compact core attractive to pedestrians.

Both City Council members Bill Huizinga and Eric Erichsen asked Hugo to clarify what exactly was being recommended in the downtown plan.

Hugo, who was hired in early May after more than a month as interim planning director, came on board during the tail end of the downtown plan’s public process, which was primarily coordinated by the former assistant planning director, Joe Irvin.

Councilwoman Susan Lorenzen said she understood the positions taken by the property owners.

“They made some very good points, and I don’t want their comments run over by this plan,” Lorenzen said, adding she wanted to see their issues heard without creating “a whole lot of hardship” on their businesses.

Mayor Ken Hays, who said he walks almost daily from his office between Bell and Washington streets, via Seal Street, to get to City Hall on West Cedar Street, said he did not see the “threat” that they expressed.

“Seal Street, in many ways, is already a woonerf,” Hays said, later adding:

“Maybe the word ­woonerf is causing anxiety.”

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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.